Glendalough Fair: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga) (Volume 4)

by James L. Nelson

  “Come with me!” Thorgrim shouted to his men. He raced amidships, jumped over the side and plunged ahead through the stream. He looked up river to where the fighting was taking place, Ottar making ready to launch his assault on the attackers still hidden in the woods, as around him his men fell wounded or dead under the hail of arrows. Thorgrim thought he could see several arrows embedded in Ottar’s shield. The luck that had kept that madman alive so far was working still.

  You idiot… Thorgrim thought. Did Ottar really mean to charge right at the woods, up that steep bank, at an enemy he could not see?

  The side of Ottar’s ship bristled with arrows, the men holding the sheer strake and the tow ropes were being shot down where they stood or were abandoning the ship to join in the attack. And then suddenly there were not enough men left to hold the ship against the current. The rushing water grabbed the vessel’s long keel and pulled it from the grip of the few men still holding on, twisted it sideways and sent it sweeping downstream, plunging out of control toward the ships below.

  Ottar’s men were charging toward their enemy and they did not react at all, as far as Thorgrim could see, as their ship drove itself into the next vessel in the fleet, anchored just downstream. Ottar’s ship had turned sideways in the river and its midships hit the bow of the second vessel at nearly a right angle, fouling it, wrenching the second ship’s anchor clear of the bottom and sending the two ships, now locked together, down on the third.

  “Oh, by the gods!” Thorgrim shouted. He would have been happy enough to let Ottar’s ships be driven clear back to the sea, but if they were not stopped then they would strike his own ships and do untold damage.

  “Come, follow me!” he called to the men behind him, thoughts of joining the battle pushed aside by this more immediate threat. Thorgrim slipped Iron-tooth back into its scabbard and rushed forward, fighting the fast river current, spitting rain water. He was hampered by his shield and he thought of casting it aside but he still had hope he would need it.

  The two ships were turning slowly in the river as they swept down on Thorgrim and his men; with their leering beast figure heads they looked like monsters from a fever dream, and though they were made of wood and iron and tar they were at that moment every bit as dangerous as living sea serpents.

  Thorgrim stopped, held up his hand for the others to stop as well, as they watched the two longships drifting down on them. Two of Ottar’s other ships were well clear, anchored close to the shore, but the third, anchored farther out, seemed to be right in the path of the drifting vessels.

  The ships turned slowly in the current and their momentum built with every yard they gained. Then their motion was checked as the two slammed into the third ship in line and tore it free from its anchor. The impact made the vessels shudder. The sound of crushing wood was audible over the driving rain and the shouting men. Now the three ships were locked together and their momentum was building again as they were swept along.

  “Agnarr, Harald!” Thorgrim shouted and the two men came splashing up beside him. “I will take Godi and some men and we’ll grab onto the tow rope of whatever ship is upstream, try to stop it. I don’t think you will be able to stop the others, just try to shove them to the side so they don’t hit Sea Hammer. Bersi!”

  “Yes, Thorgrim?” Bersi shouted.

  “You and Kjartan, get Blood Hawk astern of Dragon, keep her clear of these ships!”

  They had a minute, no more, before the ships would be on top of them. Thorgrim waved his arm and pushed forward, fighting his way through the water, eyes on the ships turning and twisting and bobbing down on them, great malevolent creatures that they seemed to be. They blocked his view of the upper part of the river, but as he charged ahead they turned to reveal Ottar and his men, further upstream.

  The ambushed men were locked in battle with the Irish and seemed unaware that their ships were being swept away, and even if they were, there was nothing they could do about it. Thorgrim could see Ottar, a head taller than any of the others, sword raised, pushing through the water toward the river bank. His men moved forward with him, a line of men, some with shields, most without, some with mail. They had been struggling to pull their ships through the shallows and so had been caught unawares, unarmed and unprepared.

  Stupid son of a bitch, Thorgrim thought. He saw Ottar and his men reach the steep, muddy bank, saw they trying to claw their way up, arms hampered by weapons and shields. And then from the dense bracken above them came the Irish with spear-points leading, swords behind, hacking Ottar’s men down, ramming iron tips into their chests. Thorgrim could hear the shrieks of agony, the bellows of rage.

  Then the ships they had come to stop were on them and Thorgrim had no time for Ottar’s stupidity. A tow rope made fast to the upstream-most ship was trailing in the river and Thorgrim guessed that would do as well as any. He plunged ahead, kicking at the water like he could move it out of his way. He could see the rope twisting just under the ruffled surface. Two steps and he was on it, reaching down and snatching it up. The line came up out of the water and he held the one end as the ship at the other end was swept downstream.

  “Bear a hand here, bear a hand!” Thorgrim shouted. The line was in his right hand, and he grabbed it with his left as well, but with the shield on his arm he could get only a tentative grip. The strain started coming on and Thorgrim pressed his lips together, tightened his hold and leaned back against the pull.

  A man named Armod pushed up beside him and grabbed up the rope as well and Thorgrim felt the pressure ease as Armod took up the strain. Then others were there; Sutare Thorvaldsson and the massive Godi standing like a rune stone, the water breaking around him. The line came straight as a spear shaft and the ship at the far end twisted and turned bow toward them.

  We can hold the one, Thorgrim thought. We cannot hold all three. If the three ships remained locked together they would pull Thorgrim and the others along with them, or force the men to drop the rope and watch Ottar’s ships smash into Sea Hammer and take her along in the destruction.

  The wayward vessels seemed to pause in their flight. The rope creaked and Armod and the others grunted and cursed with the effort of checking their motion. For a heartbeat they hung there, men and ships, and Thorgrim did not know which force would prevail. Then the two vessels wrenched free from the one they held at the rope’s end and continued their mad escape downstream, while the strain on the rope dropped to a fraction of what it had been.

  “Thorgrim!” Godi shouted. “There’s a tree! We can make fast!” Thorgrim looked over his shoulder, looked in the direction in which Godi pointed. Fifty feet away a big oak rose up out of the river.

  “Good!” Thorgrim shouted and together the dozen or so men who were tailing onto the tow rope began walking away with it, making their labored way upstream, hauling Ottar’s ship behind like it was some great, reluctant beast they were bringing to the slaughter. The rain washed down on them but they could not wipe it away, so they blinked and spit and dug their soft shoes into the gravel bed of the river.

  Thorgrim wanted desperately to see what was happening downstream with Sea Hammer, but hauling on the rope, he could not turn and look. He also wanted desperately to see what was happening upstream with Ottar’s attack on the Irish, but now the river bank blocked his view.

  And then they were at the oak. The man at the far end of the tow rope reached the tree and took two round turns around the solid trunk and Ottar’s ship was fast. Thorgrim let go of the line, spun on his heel to see what was happening with Sea Hammer and was nearly knocked over by the force of the stream.

  Like a bull baiting, he thought. He had seen that in Hedeby once, a pack of dogs set on an enraged bull that whirled and kicked and thrashed with its horns. The forty or so of his men confronting Ottar’s out of control ships reminded him of that. They stood clear as the vessels drifted down on them, then leapt forward, grabbing hold where they could, pushing, leaping clear again as the vessels came plunging down on their own ship
s.

  Harald stood near the bow of the ship furthest downstream. “Push off, push off here!” he shouted and flung his broad shoulder against the vessel’s side, it’s stem and figurehead looming above him. Thorgrim saw the ship move under the pressure from Harald’s powerful back and legs, saw it straighten, it’s stern swinging away from Sea Hammer seconds before it would have slammed into her.

  Others leapt up and joined Harald and they pushed until the ship was no longer sideways in the river, then they stepped clear and let her drift past Sea Hammer and continue on downstream. The second of Ottar’s ships followed in her wake as if it was being led on a rope. Dragon and Blood Raven had been shifted clear and the drifting vessels passed them by no more than a few feet.

  Thorgrim watched only long enough to be certain his own ships were safe and then he once again called to his men and they rallied to him. Most had shields now and swords and axes, as ready for battle as they were going to get.

  “Ottar’s men are being butchered because Ottar’s a fool!” he shouted. “We must join in, save the sorry bastards.” He spit rainwater and pointed toward the trees right adjacent to where they stood. “We’ll go into the woods there, move along the river bank, take these Irish whore’s sons by surprise.” He saw men nod. He turned and splashed toward the northern bank of the river

  He ran as best he could, a stumbling, exhausting effort through the knee high water, and he spared a glance upstream. Ottar’s men were still mostly in the river, fighting an enemy on the shore above. Ottar was still standing, swinging his sword in great arcs while the others fought beside him.

  He could see the Irish among the trees. He saw few spears now. The spears had mostly been thrown, Thorgrim guessed, or broken or pulled from spearmen’s hands. That meant Irish and Northmen were fighting sword against sword and that meant Ottar’s men had a better chance of at least making a good show of it.

  Hold them, Thorgrim thought. Three minutes more… If Ottar could keep the Irish at it for another three minutes, then he and his men could run right into their flank and do great execution.

  Thorgrim reached the river bank, steeper than he had expected, and with some difficulty pulled himself up and into the tree line. He did not wait for the others behind but turned and plunged on through the undergrowth and the saplings and the mature oaks and maples. The leaves above turned the rain aside like thatch and Thorgrim could hear the fighting now. The bracken was wet and the water lashed him as he pushed through, but he could not possibly be any more soaked than he already was.

  The afternoon was dark and it was darker still in the woods and hard to see, but Thorgrim sensed someone ahead, someone moving, and he guessed he had reached the end of the Irish line. He drew Iron-tooth and pushed on forward. Another fifteen feet and then he saw him, an Irishman, spear held straight out, looking more as if he was trying to ward off an attack than join in one. There was nothing about the man, save for the spear, that suggested he was anything more than a poor farmer, one of these pathetic creatures called up to do his lord’s bloody work, and now he would die for reasons he probably did not even understand.

  Thorgrim crashed on through the undergrowth, the noise of his passing hidden by the drum of the rain overhead and the shouting and screaming from the river to his left. He was raising Iron-tooth for a backhand stroke when the spearman finally realized he was there.

  The man’s head jerked around, his eyes went wide, his mouth opened and he began a feeble thrust of the spear in Thorgrim’s direction as Iron-tooth came whistling through the air. The blade caught the man in the throat and the force of the blow sent him sprawling into the undergrowth, a bright gush of blood proceeding him to the ground.

  Thorgrim vaulted over his still thrashing body. He could see the next Irishman, the next three men, actually, all bearing spears. They had been looking out toward the river but Thorgrim and his men had managed to make enough noise to catch their attention. Like the man Thorgrim had just killed, they did not look like men-at-arms, and they did not act like it either.

  They had not expected an enemy to come charging out of the woods, that was clear, and they seemed to give no thought to fighting. They flung their spears away, turned and scrambled through the woods, Thorgrim on their heels, his men right behind him. Thorgrim could see Harald charging along, knocking saplings aside with his shield. The boy ran like there was something hideous pursuing him, but Harald was the hunter, not the hunted, the worst nightmare of the Irish farmers fleeing before him.

  Panic swept up the line of Irish spearmen arrayed along the river’s edge. They screamed and cursed and joined the flight, driven by the Norsemen’s swords. Through the trees Thorgrim could see glimpses of the river and Ottar’s men, some fighting, some doubled over with wounds, some floating motionless. He turned back to the fight at hand.

  The Irish spearmen were gone, run off in panic, but there was another line of men ahead, and Thorgrim could see that these were no farmers. Whoever was in command here must have put his most useless warriors on the edges of the fight, his best men in the middle where Ottar was bound to attack. Or perhaps he gave the spearmen leave to pull back when the real fighting began, let the men-at-arms take the brunt of that. These men wore mail and carried shields and did not run at the sight of the Northmen coming from the trees, but rather shifted their positions to meet them head on.

  Thorgrim came to a stop. The man before him now was not running in panic but standing his ground, a long sword in his right hand, a shield with a red cross painted on its face in his left. Iron-tooth came down in a wide arc again, but this time the weapon was met with the shield that took the blow and turned it aside. Thorgrim leapt back as the counterstroke came low, under his shield, looking for his calves or knees but finding only air.

  Thorgrim stepped in and slammed his shield into the man and made him stagger, then went right in with Iron-tooth, right for the man’s unprotected throat. The Irishman was still trying to raise his shield when he died on Thorgrim’s sword point. Thorgrim pushed him aside as he fell and leapt for the next man, who was already swinging at Thorgrim with his sword.

  Starri…Thorgrim thought. They did not have Starri and his manic energy, his unnerving ferocity. With Starri in the fight the enemy knew that something wild and unworldly was in their midst and it put fear into them. But now Starri was fighting a different fight.

  The Irish men-at-arms had managed to swing their line away from the river’s edge to meet the new threat on their flank, and the two sides, Irish and Northmen, ran into one another like walls of rushing water colliding. Thorgrim saw Harald launch a brutal attack on the man in front of him, his sword and shield moving in a perfect geometric harmony, shield arcing left, sword swinging right. The grace and power of the attack drove the other man back. Godi was beside him, a massive ax in his hand, his attack less subtle but no less effective.

  There were two men coming at Thorgrim now, both with sword, shield and mail. They came on shoulder to shoulder, straight at him, but Thorgrim stepped to his right, putting the man on the left beyond sword’s reach, and lunged at the man on his right.

  The Irishman parried the blade and made a thrust at Thorgrim but Thorgrim took another step to his right, and then another, putting a massive oak between him and the two men, blocking their view of him as if he was trying to hide. He guessed they would circle around, coming at him from either side, which meant the one on the left would reach him first. Thorgrim held his shield with its edge against the trunk of the tree, refreshed his grip on Iron-tooth just as the Irishman leapt into the clear, apparently thinking he would take Thorgrim by surprise.

  The Irishman’s sword swung around in a wide sweeping blow intended to cut down anything in its path. The blade connected with the iron rim of Thorgrim’s shield and bounced off and Thorgrim drove Iron-tooth’s point right into a spot below the rim of the man’s helmet. He jerked the sword free as the man fell and ran past him, around the tree. It was like a child’s game, racing around the trunk, but
the second Irishman did not look amused when Thorgrim came up behind him. He had time only to half turn in Thorgrim’s direction before Iron-tooth, still wet with Irish blood, cut him down too.

  Thorgrim was breathing hard. He paused, looked around. His men were engaged with the men-at-arms now, dozens of private duels. Some he could see, some were lost in the woods. There was more movement to his left, men crashing through bracken. Ottar’s men. Thorgrim’s attack had forced the Irish to turn away from the river, and that had allowed Ottar’s men to scramble up the bank where they could fight their enemy on level ground.

  The Irishmen seemed to waver in their attack. Thorgrim could sense them stepping back, fighting now on two sides, no longer certain of where the enemy was. Push harder, push harder, he thought. They would break in a moment. They would start to run, and when they did, they could be cut down in flight.

  Thorgrim felt an animal howl building in his chest, a wolf howl, a sound that would bring terror to the Irish, that would drive his men on. He leapt forward and swung Iron-tooth at a big Irishman wielding a battle ax, and the move seemed to draw the howl from deep inside him. The sound rang in his ears, rang thought the woods. It took the Irishman by surprise. Thorgrim could see the terror in his face. He dropped the battle ax, turned and fled. Thorgrim lunged at him, fast as a serpent, but he was not able to get a blade on the man.

  “Come on! Come on!” Thorgrim shouted and he saw his men pushing ahead, he could see them through the thick woods as they made a line that swept inexorably forward. Then, from some unseen place deep in the trees there came the sharp, clear note of a horn, as if in answer to Thorgrim’s call. It was the same note Thorgrim had heard at the Meeting of the Waters and it called the Irishmen to fall back, to get clear, to live and fight again.